This date in history

[Jimbuna]

1619 - 1st known African Americans (appox. 20) land at Jamestown Virginia aboard Dutch vessel then sold or traded into servitude for supplies.

1741 - Alaska first sighted by Danish explorer Vitus Bering at head of Russian expedition.

1940 - 1st Polish squadrons fight along allies in the Battle of Britain.

1940 - British PM Churchill says of Royal Air Force, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few".

1944 - Gen de Gaulle returns to France.

[Aktungbby]

1865: President Andrew Johnson declares the Civil War is formally over.

[Jimbuna]

1945 - US President Harry Truman ends Lend-Lease programme.

1959 - Hawaii becomes 50th US state.

1976 - Operation Paul Bunyan at Panmunjeom, Korea.

[Aktungbby]

1831: Nat Turner leads a violent slave uprising in Virginia resulting in the deaths of 55 white people...Whites organized militias and called out regular troops to suppress the rising. In addition, mobs attacked blacks in the area killing an estimated total of 100-200, many not involved at all with the revolt. Turner was hanged on November 11 in Jerusalem, Virginia. Age 31; His body was flayed beheaded and quartered!! Turner received no formal burial; his headless remains were either buried unmarked or kept for scientific use. His skull is said to have passed through many hands, last being reported in the collection of a planned civil rights museum for Gary, Indiana, despite calls for its burial. Beginning in February 1831, Turner interpreted certain atmospheric conditions as a sign to begin preparations for a rebellion against the slave owners. On February 11, 1831, an eclipse was seen in Virginia and Turner envisioned this as a 'black man's hand reaching over the sun. He initially planned the rebellion to begin on July 4, Independence Day. Turner postponed it because of illness and to use the delay for additional planning and deliberation with his co-conspirators. On August 13 there was another solar eclipse in which the sun appeared bluish-green, possibly the result of lingering atmospheric debris from an eruption of Mount St. Helens. Turner interpreted this as the final signal, and about a week later, on August 21, he began the uprising. [wiki] Mt St Helens. Martin Luther KING-1968: "Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t really matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live – a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will." He too was assassinated...the day after uttering those words. Age 39. 1858: The first of seven debates begins between Abraham Lincoln and Stephan Douglas for the office of Senator, mostly on the ticking timebomb issue of slavery, at Ottowa, Illinois. Lincoln will lose the election ...but win the debate-war on January 1, 1863! AT Ottowa: " ... I hate it (slavery) because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world—enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites—causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty—criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest." January 1,1863: Within 5 years, Lincoln does not just 'talk the talk'-he 'walks the walk'! He issues the Emancipation Proclamation.

[Jimbuna]

1642 - Civil War in England began between Royalists & Parliament.

1864 - First Geneva Convention adopted in Geneva "for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field".

1945 - Vietnam conflict begins as Ho Chi Minh leads a successful coup.

[Aktungbby]

1485: Henry Tudor defeats Richard III(recently reburied) at Bosworth. This victory establishes the Tudor dynasty in England and ends the War of the Roses. "a horse a horse...my kingdom for a horse" 1642: Civil war in England begins as Charles I declares war on Parliament at Nottingham. Having entered Parliament' chambers to personally arrest 5 treasonous MP's who'd escaped, He declared: ""all my birds have flown". 1922: Michael Collins, Irish politician, is killed in an ambush. "On several occasions Collins assured his advisors "they won't shoot me in my own county," or words to that effect.

[Jimbuna]

1940 - German Luftwaffe begins night bombing on London.

1942 - Battle of Stalingrad: 600 Luftwaffe planes bomb Stalingrad (40,000 die).

1942 - World War II: The last cavalry charge in history takes place at Izbushensky.

[Jimbuna]

79 - Mt Vesuvius erupts, buries Pompeii & Herculaneum, 15,000 die.

1814 - British forces captured Washington, DC, & burned down many landmarks (War of 1812).

[Jimbuna]

1768 - Captain James Cook departs from Plymouth, England on his first voyage, on board the Endeavour, bound for the Pacific Ocean.

1944 - Paris liberated from Nazi occupation (Freedom Tuesday).

[Jimbuna]

1346 - Battle of Crécy, south of Calais in northern France; Edward III's English longbows defeat Philip VI's army, cannons used for first time in battle.

1944 - De Gaulle marches along the Champs-Elysees.

1945 - Japanese diplomats board USS Missouri to receive instructions on Japan's surrender at the end of WW II.

[BossMark]

1776-The Americans are defeated by the British at the Battle of Long Island, New York.

1813-The Allies defeat Napoleon at the Battle of Dresden.

1912-Edgar Rice Burrough’s Tarzan of the Apes first appears in a magazine.

1916-Italy declares war on Germany.

1941-The Prime Minister of Japan, Fumimaro Konoye, issues an invitation for a meeting with President Roosevelt.

1945-B-29 Superfortress bombers begin to drop supplies into Allied prisoner of war camps in China.

[Jimbuna]

1883 - Krakatoa, west of Java, explodes with a force of 1,300 megatons and kills approximately 40,000 people.

1979 - Warrenpoint ambush: 18 British Army soldiers were killed when the Provisional Irish Republican Army explode two roadside bombs as a British convoy passed Narrow Water Castle near Warrenpoint.

2008 - Barack Obama becomes the first African-American to be nominated by a major political party for President of the United States.

[Aktungbby]

1989: the first US commercial satellite rocket is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida a Dallas boster carrying a British communications satellite, the Marcopolo I . In July 1987 British Satellite Broadcasting Ltd. (BSB), a privately owned and operated company, selected Hughes Space and Communications Company, today known as Boeing Satellite Systems Inc., to design and build two Hughes HS-376 satellites for the first television direct broadcast service (DBS) in the United Kingdom. Hughes would also build the telemetry and monitoring equipment for the ground station located in Southampton, and train BSB ground station personnel. Additionally, Hughes agreed to purchase and handle all aspects of the launch and insurance and to deliver the satellites only after they had been thoroughly tested in orbit. In an agreement that inaugurated the commercial launch industry in the United States, Hughes contracted with McDonnell Douglas to supply two Delta rockets. A Delta-4925 model boosted the first BSB satellite.
Key to the BSB direct broadcast scheme was having a satellite with enough power to be received by very small (35 cm/13.5 inch diameter), low-cost dishes, thereby making DBS both environmentally friendly and affordable for the public. Each satellite was equipped with three 110 watt channels. With a footprint that covered the United Kingdom, the satellites broadcast a mix of news, sports, current affairs, light entertainment, children's daytime TV, and a subscription nighttime movie channel.
The popular spin-stabilized HS-376, spacecraft proved to be highly reliable and adaptable. It accommodated a wide range of customized payloads, as demonstrated by the versions ordered and built for a dozen customers on six continents...."Britannia rules the airwaves"??!! BSB ran into financial problems by the end of 1991 and merged with rival Sky Network. Marco Polo I was acquired in-orbit two years later by the Swedish company Nordiska Satellite. It operated as Sirius 1 until 2001 and was then renamed Sirius W. It was sent up to a higher, non-geosynchronous junk orbit in 2003. Talk about "absorbed by the smorgas-BORG" here!!??BSB even had mints to munch while watching the telly

[Jimbuna]

1609 - Henry Hudson, discovers & explores Delaware Bay.

1864 - The first Geneva Convention, governing rules of warfare, signed by 26 nations.

1963 - Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I have a dream speech" addressing civil rights march at Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC.

[Jimbuna]

1943 - Danish Navy scuttles its warships so as not to be taken by Germany.

1944 - 15,000 American troops liberating Paris march down Champs Elysees.

1945 - British liberate Hong Kong from Japan.